He, in the meantime, had become greatly alarmed by her protracted absence, and procuring a light by flashing powder in the pan of one of his pistols, he was proceeding in search of her through the chambers of the villa, from the walls of which many a grim old fellow in beard and breast-plate looked grimly and sternly at him out of his frame:--many a grave hidalgo by Diego Velasquez were there, and many a scriptural Murillo, sold, perhaps, by that great painter for bread in the streets of his native Seville. Of all the chateaux en Espagne, this Villa de Maciera, with its episodes, was, perhaps, the last of which Quentin could have imagined himself to be even temporarily master. Gloomy, empty, and deserted, it seemed to be veritably one of the mysterious mansions of which he had read so much in the romances of Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, who was then in the zenith of her fame. "It is, indeed, a devil of a predicament," he muttered. Again and again he called her name aloud, without hearing other response than the echoes. The place was mournfully still, and now the wind and rain had ceased, and the night had become calm. Well, there was some comfort in that; with morning he might resume his journey; but this Spanish girl--his heart trembled for her, for there seemed to be no extravagant impulse to which she was not capable of giving way. To have responded to her wayward love, and then to have "levanted" on the first convenient opportunity, "a way we (sometimes) have in the army," might have been the treacherous measure adopted by many; but Quentin, apart from his admiration of her beauty, had a sincere regard for the girl, and though young in years, felt older by experience than those years warranted. He thought she might have retired to her room--to rest, perhaps; yet he could not hear her breathing, for when he listened at the door, all was still within. He knocked gently, but there was no response, so pushing it open, he entered. Isidora had told him that this was the apartment she usually occupied when residing with the Condesa de Maciera. It was the perfection of a little bed-chamber; elaborate candelabra of cut crystal glittered like prisms on the white marble mantelpiece, the central ornament of which was an exquisite crucifix of ivory. The floor was of polished oak, and the walls were hung with some charming water-colour landscapes of the adjacent mountain scenery, in chaste and narrow frames: and then the little bed, half buried amid muslin curtains of the purest white, was much more like an English than a Spanish one. Tent-form, the flowing drapery depended from a gilt coronet; the pillows, edged with the finest lace, were all untouched and unpressed, so Donna Isidora was not there.